How Julian Assange sought to block early Guardian release of US Embassy Cables

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US magazine Vanity Fair this month takes an in-depth look at the complex and often tense dealings between The Guardian, Wikileaks and Julian Assange over the Afghan War Logs and the US Embassy Cables data releases.

Since early last year, The Guardian has brokered deals with Assange whereby it was given exclusive access to major releases of leaked documents.

Vanity Fair reveals how a raging Julian Assange tried to use legal threats to stop the Guardian publishing the US Embassy Cables late last year and going back on an earlier promise to stick to his timetable for release of the data. The problem came about apparently after Heather Brooke was leaked the entire database by a disgruntled Wikileaks staffer and it looked like she might possibly take the story to another paper (she ended up working with The Guardian on the story).

Another interesting snippet is the revelation that on day one of the US Embassy Cables story, 29 November, the Guardian website attracted four million unique users – which was a record.

All in all Assange – like so many great sources – seems like a pretty difficult character to work with.